Friday, September 16, 2016
Child Development Advice And Help For Parents Develop Skills
Child Development Advice And Help For Parents Develop Skills
Child Development, physical, intellectual, social, and emotional changes that occur from birth to adolescence. Although people change throughout their lives, developmental changes are especially dramatic in childhood. During this period, a dependent, vulnerable newborn grows into a capable young person who has mastered language, is self-aware, can think and reason with sophistication, has a distinctive personality, and socializes effortlessly with others. Many abilities and characteristics developed in childhood last a lifetime.Some developments in behavior and thought are very similar for all children. Around the world, most infants begin to focus their eyes, sit up, and learn to walk at comparable ages, and children begin to acquire language and develop logical reasoning skills at approximately the same time. These aspects of individual growth are highly predictable. Other aspects of development show a much wider range of individual differences. Whether a child becomes outgoing or shy, intellectually advanced or average, or energetic or subdued depends on many unique influences whose effects are difficult to predict at the child’s birth.
A variety of factors influence child development. Heredity guides every aspect of physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and personality development. Family members, peer groups, the school environment, and the community influence how children think, socialize, and become self-aware. Biological factors such as nutrition, medical care, and environmental hazards in the air and water affect the growth of the body and mind. Economic and political institutions, the media, and cultural values all guide how children live their lives. Critical life events, such as a family crisis or a national emergency, can alter the growth of personality and identity. Most important of all, children contribute significantly to their own development. This occurs as they strive to understand their experiences, respond in individual ways to the people around them, and choose activities, friends, and interests. Thus, the factors that guide development arise from both outside and within the person.
Why is the study of child development important? One reason is that it provides practical guidance for parents, teachers, child-care providers, and others who care for children. A second reason is that it enables society to support healthy growth. Understanding early brain development, for example, means that parents can provide better opportunities for intellectual stimulation, and society can reduce or eliminate obstacles to healthy brain growth. Third, the study of child development helps therapists and educators better assist children with special needs, such as those with emotional or learning difficulties. Finally, understanding child development contributes to self-understanding. We know ourselves better by recognizing the influences that have made us into the people we are today.
II HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
A Early Views of Children
People have thought very differently about children in different historical eras. In ancient Rome and throughout the Middle Ages, for example, childhood was brief: A boy or girl was considered an “infant” until the age of six, but soon afterward worked alongside adults in the fields, workshop, or home. Children were thought to be born in a state of sin and were viewed as the property of their fathers. Such beliefs contributed to strict discipline of children and neglect of their special needs.
These harsh attitudes softened during the Renaissance and Enlightenment as the humanistic spirit of the times caused a rediscovery of the special qualities of childhood. In paintings, for example, young children were depicted more realistically as they played, nursed, and did other childish things, rather than being shown as miniature adults. The importance of childhood as a unique period of development was understood more fully in the 17th and 18th centuries, as reflected in the writings of two important European thinkers. The English philosopher John Locke argued that the newborn infant comes into the world with no inherited predispositions, but rather with a mind as a tabula rasa (Latin for “blank slate”) that is gradually filled with ideas, concepts, and knowledge from experiences in the world. He concluded that the quality of early experiences, particularly how children are raised and educated, shapes the direction of a child’s life. Later, the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau claimed that children at birth are innately good, not evil, and that their natural tendencies should be protected against the corrupting influences of society. The sympathetic, romantic attitude toward children inspired by Rousseau had an important influence on society. For example, the novelists Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo decried the exploitation of child labor and highlighted the need for educational and social reform.
B Scientific Study
In the late 19th century, interest in the characteristics and needs of children produced more systematic efforts to study their development. The modern theory of evolution, conceived by British naturalist Charles Darwin, contributed to this interest by arguing that human behavior is best understood through knowledge of its origins—in both the evolution of the species and the early development of individuals. Darwin himself studied children’s growth by writing one of the first “baby biographies,” consisting of careful observations of his children. In the early 1900s, the theory of psychoanalysis focused on the importance of early childhood experiences. American psychologist G. Stanley Hall at Clark University began large-scale investigations of child development through surveys and interviews with the adults who cared for them. For the first time, children warranted scientific attention because of society’s interest in their development and well-being.
In the 1920s developmental scientists at other American universities began large-scale observational studies of children and their families, including the Berkeley Growth Studies at the University of California, the Fels Growth Study at Antioch College, and the Harvard Growth Studies at Harvard University. Each investigation studied a large number of children repeatedly over many years to identify changes and consistencies in their behavior and thinking. At Stanford University, psychologist Lewis Terman created the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, which remains one of the most widely used assessments of children’s intellectual capabilities (see Intelligence). Terman also started his own long-term study of highly intelligent children. At Yale University, psychologist Arnold Gesell established a research institute devoted to identifying age norms for a wide variety of behaviors and characteristics. While Gesell believed in the importance of maturation on children’s development, other psychologists emphasized the role of learning from environmental influences. One of these, John B. Watson of Johns Hopkins University, advised parents to treat their offspring in an objective, consistent manner to encourage the development of desired characteristics. Watson believed that all human behaviors could be explained as learned responses to stimuli in the environment, an approach known as behaviorism. This approach to the study of child development remained dominant for the first half of the 20th century.
Although behaviorists contributed much to the study of children, their concepts eventually were viewed as being overly narrow. In the early 1960s scholars began to focus more attention on the work of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who had been studying children’s cognitive development since the 1920s. Piaget claimed that children construct new knowledge by applying their current knowledge structures to new experiences and modifying them accordingly. His perspective, called constructivism, emphasized the active role children play in their own mental growth as inquisitive thinkers.
Piaget’s theories led to other approaches to the study of child development. In the 1960s and 1970s British psychologist John Bowlby and American psychologist Mary Ainsworth introduced the concept of attachment. They proposed that infants and young children form emotional bonds to their caregivers because, throughout human evolutionary history, close attachments to adults promoted the survival of defenseless children. In the 1970s and 1980s American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner sought to describe child development in terms of ecological and cultural forces. In his model, environmental influences on the child extend well beyond the family and peer group, and include schools and other community agencies, social institutions such as the media, political and economic conditions, and national customs. Other developmental scientists have studied how cultural values guide the skills and attitudes that children acquire as they mature, and how brain maturation influences the development of thinking and feeling.
III BASIC QUESTIONS
A Nature and Nurture
Scholars have long debated the relative importance of nature (hereditary influences) and nurture (environmental influences) in child development. It was once assumed that these forces operated independently of each other. Today developmental scientists recognize that both influences are essential and are mutually influential. For example, how a child responds to parenting—an environmental influence—is partly determined by the child’s temperament and other inherited characteristics.
Likewise, the environment influences how hereditary characteristics develop and are expressed. During the past century, for example, there have been significant increases in average height because of improved nutrition and medical care, even though individual differences in height are strongly influenced by heredity. The conclusion that strongly inherited characteristics are changeable has important practical implications. For instance, even though many features of personality are based on inherited temperament, the family environment is an important influence on a child’s personality development. Thus, even a child with a difficult temperament can develop positively in a warm and caring family environment.
B Continuity or Stages
Does childhood growth occur continuously and gradually, or is it instead a series of distinct stages? People often think of childhood as a sequence of age-related stages (such as infancy, early childhood, and middle childhood), and many developmental theories portray childhood growth in this manner. Such a view recognizes that each period of growth has its own distinct changes, challenges, and characteristics. But many aspects of childhood development are more gradual and continuous, such as the development of physical skills, social abilities, and emotional understanding. Even some milestones that seem to denote a new stage of growth—such as a child’s first word—are actually the outcome of a more gradual developmental process.
C Stability and Change
Are a person’s characteristics primarily shaped by early influences, remaining relatively stable thereafter throughout life? Or does change occur continuously throughout life? Many people believe that early experiences are formative, providing a strong or weak foundation for later psychological growth. This view is expressed in the popular saying “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” From this perspective, it is crucial to ensure that young children have a good start in life. But many developmental scientists believe that later experiences can modify or even reverse early influences; studies show that even when early experiences are traumatic or abusive, considerable recovery can occur. From this vantage point, early experiences influence, but rarely determine, later characteristics.
Like other basic questions about development, whether early experiences are a determining force or fading influence has practical implications. For example, belief in the importance of early experiences is the basis of efforts to strengthen early childhood education programs, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, to reduce later difficulties in school achievement.
IV THEORIES OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT
A theory is an organized set of principles that is designed to explain and predict something. Over the years, psychologists and other scientists have devised a variety of theories with which to explain observations and discoveries about child development. In addition to providing a broader framework of understanding, a good theory permits educated guesses—or hypotheses—about aspects of development that are not yet clearly understood. These hypotheses provide the basis for further research. A theory also has practical value. When a parent, educator, therapist, or policymaker makes decisions that affect the lives of children, a well-founded theory can guide them in responsible ways.
Theories can also limit understanding, such as when a poor theory misleadingly emphasizes unimportant influences on development and underestimates the significance of other factors. It is therefore essential that theories are carefully evaluated and tested through research, whose results often lead to improvements in theoretical claims. In addition, when theories are compared and contrasted, their strengths and limitations can be more easily identified.
There are four primary theories of child development: psychoanalytic, learning, cognitive, and sociocultural. Each offers insights into the forces guiding childhood growth. Each also has limitations, which is why many developmental scientists use more than one theory to guide their thinking about the growth of children.
A Psychoanalytic Theories
At the end of the 19th century, Austrian physician Sigmund Freud developed the theory and techniques of psychoanalysis; it formed the basis for several later psychoanalytic theories of human development. Psychoanalytic theories share an emphasis on personality development and early childhood experiences. In the psychoanalytic view, early experiences shape one’s personality for an entire lifetime, and psychological problems in adulthood may have their origins in difficult or traumatic childhood experiences.
In addition, psychoanalytic theories emphasize the role of unconscious, instinctual drives in personality development. Some of these drives are sexual or aggressive in quality, and their unacceptability to the conscious mind causes them to be repressed in the unconscious mind. Here, they continue to exert a powerful influence on an individual’s behavior, often without his or her awareness.
Most psychoanalytic theories portray development as a series of stages through which all children proceed. According to Freud, child development consists of five psychosexual stages in which a particular body region is the focus of sensual satisfactions; the focus of pleasure shifts as children progress through the stages.
During the oral stage, from birth to age 1, the mouth, tongue, and gums are the focus of sensual pleasure, and the baby develops an emotional attachment to the person providing these satisfactions (primarily through feeding). During the anal stage, from ages 1 to 3, children focus on pleasures associated with control and self-control, primarily with respect to defecation and toilet training. In the phallic stage, from ages 3 to 6, children derive pleasure from genital stimulation. They are also interested in the physical differences between the sexes and identify with their same-sex parent. The latency phase, from ages 7 to 11, is when sensual motives subside and psychological energy is channeled into conventional activities, such as schoolwork. Finally, during the genital stage, from adolescence through adulthood, individuals develop mature sexual interests.
An American psychoanalyst, Erik Erikson, proposed a related series of psychosocial stages of personality growth that more strongly emphasize social influences within the family. Erikson’s eight stages span the entire life course, and, contrary to Freud’s stages, each involves a conflict in the social world with two possible outcomes. In infancy, for example, the conflict is “trust vs. mistrust” based on whether the baby is confident that others will provide nurturance and care. In adolescence, “identity vs. role confusion” defines the teenager’s search for self-understanding. Erikson’s theory thus emphasizes the interaction of internal psychological growth and the support of the social world.
Psychoanalytic theories offer a rich portrayal of personality growth that emphasizes the complex emotional—and sometimes irrational—forces within each person. These theories are hard to prove or disprove, however, because they are based on unconscious processes inaccessible to scientific experimentation.
B Learning Theories
Learning theorists emphasize the role of environmental influences in shaping the way a person develops. In their view, child development is guided by both deliberate and unintended learning experiences in the home, peer group, school, and community. Therefore, childhood growth is significantly shaped by the efforts of parents, teachers, and others to socialize children in desirable ways. According to learning theories, the same principles that explain how people can use a bicycle or computer also explain how children acquire social skills, emotional self-control, reasoning strategies, and the physical skills of walking and running.
One kind of learning occurs when a child’s actions are followed by a reward or punishment. A reward, also called a reinforcer, increases the probability that behavior will be repeated. For example, a young child may regularly draw pictures because she receives praise from her parents after completing each one. A punishment decreases the probability that behavior will be repeated. For example, a child who touches a hot stove and burns his fingertips is not likely to touch the stove again. American psychologist B. F. Skinner devoted his career to explaining how human behavior is affected by its consequences—a process he called operant conditioning–and to describing the positive and constructive ways that reinforcement and punishment can be used to guide children’s behavior.
Another kind of learning, classical conditioning, occurs when a person makes a mental association between two events or stimuli. When conditioning has occurred, merely encountering the first stimulus produces a response once associated only with the second stimulus. For example, babies begin sucking when they are put in a familiar nursing posture, children fear dogs whose barking has startled them in the past, and students cringe at the sound of school bells that signal that they are tardy. Classical conditioning was first studied by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s and later by American psychologist John B. Watson.
A third kind of learning consists of imitating the behavior of others. A boy may acquire his father’s style of talking, his mother’s tendency to roll her eyes, and his favorite basketball player’s moves on the court. In doing so, he also acquires expectations about the consequences of these behaviors. This type of learning has been studied extensively by American psychologist Albert Bandura. His social learning theory emphasizes how learning through observation and imitation affects behavior and thought.
Learning theories provide extremely useful ways of understanding how developmental changes in behavior and thinking occur and, for some children, why behavior problems arise. These theories can be studied scientifically and practically applied. Critics point out, however, that because of their emphasis on the guidance of the social environment, learning theorists sometimes neglect children’s active role in their own understanding and development.
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